{"product_id":"9780262051330","title":"King PONG","description":"\u003cb\u003eWhy and how Atari’s first video game \u003ci\u003ePong\u003c\/i\u003e established an industry that shapes consumers’ relationships to technology to this day.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePong\u003c\/i\u003e is one of the longest, most consistently circulating video games. Released in 1972, it remains at our fingertips as an app from Google Play or Apple App Store, hosted at freepong.org and the Internet Archive, and even released as \u003ci\u003eA Tiny Game of Pong\u003c\/i\u003e for the Apple Watch. Despite its simplicity and ubiquity, Atari’s \u003ci\u003ePong \u003c\/i\u003eencapsulates far more than the history of a video game and iconic game company. \u003ci\u003eKing Pong\u003c\/i\u003e is the first book dedicated to an unassuming game that changed the world. Through the prisms of product positioning, market development, and category creation, Raiford Guins answers the question of why Atari’s inaugural product succeeded and why it endures. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAuthor of\u003ci\u003e Game After\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eAtari Design\u003c\/i\u003e, and an excavator of the “Atari landfill” in New Mexico, Guins brings us a unique history that reconsiders the launch of Atari’s Pong from the perspective of the company’s business practices. He follows the young Silicon Valley startup from its early days first positioning its new product within the existing coin-op amusement industry to its establishment of a consumer industry for home video games—a story of remarkable market development innovation. Written with a passion for video games and a historian’s insight, the book animates the business exploits of one of the fastest growing and most influential companies ever.","brand":"Raiford Guins","offers":[{"title":"MIT Press |  Paperback \/ softback | Trade paperback (US) |  2026-02-10","offer_id":47340770263295,"sku":"9780262051330","price":25.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0329\/9075\/7001\/files\/BNCImageAPI_f3fe6249-0ac2-42bf-8446-df6c0a015713.jpg?v=1760025454","url":"https:\/\/riverbookshop.com\/products\/9780262051330","provider":"River Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}